Another year, another scandal. They keep on coming and escalating as digitalisation, technology and consumer interest increase. This is good for the world (long-term) but bad for cheating companies.

Volkswagen lost just about 15,6 billion euros in stock valueafter admitting guilt. This plus maybe 18 billion dollars in fines for the American market is indeed significant. So, what is to be learned from this?

We usually preach the "opportunity perspective" to clients when talking about sustainability. The "risk perspective" is boring and often reserved for passive industries like finance (oops!). The VW case is however a very thrilling risk case for us. It is so significant that even the (male) sceptic in the management team, the one that usually falls asleep when sustainability comes up, will listen like a first grade kid. VW will keep ringing in the ears of passive companies for a long time. And this is the really big win for sustainability advocates like ourselves.